The Archimedian (unfinished)

Was going to be a short novel dealing with geomagnetic catastrophe and an artifact lost at sea. Not a dead project by any means, but I don't see myself picking it back up anytime soon.

So, he said, sitting down beside me, removing his weathered gloves and setting them on the counter where rain water seeped from them onto the polished wood, pooling a little and then spilling over onto the floor.  He didn’t look my way.  He didn’t look at much of anything, from what I could see--his eyes were vacant, distant--I’m not sure which.  Maybe both.  Gray hair shot out from under the shadow of a wide-brimmed brown hat, the kind you mind imagine a small-time detective to wear; it, too, was saturated, the water dripping from its brim onto his shoulders, the shoulders of his long coat.  Because of the coat, I couldn’t tell much about how big he was--or how small.  His voice, that single word he spoke in greeting, suggested depth--but that isn’t always very telling. 

     I waited for him to continue, to say anything else.  I was fairly certain he was the man, but I didn’t feel like pushing my luck.  Some come easy, but I’ve found the ones really worth the time, the effort, come with some degree of risk--and what I was looking for, I knew it had to be one of these.  So I knew the danger--and if what I’d heard over the phone was any indication, so did he; and by ‘he’, I simply mean the man I’d spoken with before--who’d contacted me, who arranged this meeting, this place.  Was there a chance I was being set up?  Sure.  Some stories aren’t meant to be told--but more than that, the mere existence of someone willing to hear those stories is too great a danger to just let alone.  And by ‘they’, I don’t really know who I mean.  But I’m sure they’re out there.  And I’m sure they’re aware I’m out there, too.  I’ve been at it long enough, played the game pretty well I’d say.  So they know.

     I watched him from the corner of my eye--if he didn’t want to make eye contact, then I wasn’t about to force him.  He was nervous--this calmed me, a little, in the sense that a professional would probably be more cool.  But he seemed to be considering something--everything; the lines of aged cheeks drew tight and then fell slack, his whiskery jowls dancing like gelatin.  The bartender watched him as well, a little less surreptitiously than I did but he didn’t seem to notice--the old man, I mean.  Neither did he seem thirsty--something the bartender must have picked up on.  Maybe he knew the type--I bet that’s something they pick up pretty quick.  Lucky for us, I guess, it wasn’t very crowded.  It was still too early for that, still dusk.  It was October then, late enough Fall that the evenings got dark without too much delay--but it wasn’t so late that you couldn’t walk the streets without the streetlights coming on.  That said, it wasn’t getting any earlier; still I waited for him to speak, and still he hesitated.  Once, I saw the pupil of his left eye flash my direction; it didn’t linger, but neither did it seem to miss a single detail.  This was the impression I got, anyway.

     I finished what was left of my coffee--I don’t normally drink coffee after noon, but something about this whole situation told me I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, anyway.  And, a little unsure when I entered the establishment, I wanted something that would keep me alert.  I’m not old, by any means, but I’m not exactly young, either.  You can make of that what you will, but all I really mean is that my senses aren’t what they used to be.  I’ve been missing things lately--I guess a better way of saying that is I’ve been getting surprised by things a lot more than usual.  Little things, unimportant things--nothing to worry about; but, like I said before, I didn’t feel like taking any risks.  And even if the old guy’s demeanor soothed my nerves somewhat, his agitation tripped another alarm altogether--or, I guess you could say it was the same alarm, just in a different way.  Whatever it was he had for me, it was something--and not only did he know it, but probably so did they.

     Whoever they are.

     So, he said again.  I straightened on my barstool; he stooped over his still dripping gloves, almost as if he was hiding something under his coat, something heavy strapped to his shoulders.  Maybe that was it--maybe he hoped I’d take it from him; at this point, I’d be happy to take anything he gave me, as long as it wasn’t that one word So.  But it’s not that easy, I’ve learned that much.  Not that I could tell him that--not that you can ever tell anyone that, who carries around that kind of a weight.  First of all, they already know; but the illusion of divesting it is sometimes the only thing that keeps them going.  It’s not always easy to tell from just looking at someone, but I was starting to get that impression.  Well, fine.  Whatever it is, I’ll take it--I remember thinking that.  Just get on with it, gramps. 

     So, you’re the…collector?  He said this as if it was a question--but a different question altogether than the one he asked.  Can I really go through with this?--that’s the question he seemed to be asking, and he seemed to be asking himself, not me. 

     I nodded my casual assent.  That’s one way of looking at it, I said. 

     But you do collect…things like this?  I could see his pupil again, dark, unflinching.  Staring straight at me from the corner of his wrinkled eye.

     Especially things like this, I replied.  His gaze lingered for a moment; then his shoulders fell, pushing from his raspy lungs a heavy sigh.  He picked his gloves back up from the counter, leaving behind them little pools of rainwater.  I pressed him, Shall we proceed?

     For the first time, he turned to face me.  Grey locks of wild hair shot from under the collar of his jacket--also wet with rain--but the features of his face struck me: there was nothing to them, no sharpness, no life.  There was only the white wisp of an unshaved beard that stuck out in all directions, and a single scar under one eye, his right.  Those dark eyes held the only remnant--it seemed this way, as if all other life had already faded from him--and they were like coals, black but with the glow of something like life still burning beneath.  Would going through with the exchange--would taking the weight from his shoulders--draw that fire out or quench it? 

     Not that it was any of my problem.  After all, he called me.  And it was true: collecting things like this was my line of work.  My purpose, in fact.  I wasn’t going to turn back now, just because the ghost he wanted to give me might be his own.  As I was currently chasing a ghost of my own, I couldn’t let this one go.

     No, the old man said suddenly.  Quickly he surveyed the bar--which in turn seemed to survey him in return--understandably so.  Not here, here…  His sentence trailed, but his meaning was clear.  In fact, he was even more paranoid than I was.  Nothing wrong with a little healthy fear, but this guy took the cake.  Nevertheless, I was at the mercy of this paranoia; I agreed with him, this wasn’t a good place at all.

     Where to, then? I asked.

     Just walk with me, he answered, slipping gnarled fingers back into their gloves, moving toward the door.  He couldn’t be said to stride--that weight seemed to follow him, to weigh him down as he moved, and he walked with stoop.  And also with a limp.  In other words, keeping up wasn’t an issue. 

     For a while, we walked in silence.  I followed his nervous example of scrutinizing everything that moved around us, and much that didn’t--even shadows, he seemed to want to avoid.  Where the light was least, that was where he walked--limped, hunched and laboring under his invisible weight.  Nobody approached us, though some did watch and whisper, and some point; we couldn’t have been anything less than interesting--two old men skulking about town, clinging to the shadows, like runaway convicts--or worse, like escapees from the local loony bin.  Yeah, that’s exactly how we must have looked.  In the rapidly waning dusk, I bet even his long coat looked more like an old bath robe.

     Eventually, we reached the park that overlooked the valley.  The forest loomed to one side; and when the sky was clear, you could just see a sliver of sea on the horizon.  A single, winding road ran through the heart of the valley, connecting this little backwoods village the city below.  It was a road I’d be traveling soon enough.

     He stood at the gate, a black iron construction of French design, and he rested one gloved hand on the door, as if having come this far he was suddenly unsure of his course.  I might have mentioned it before, but the rain had stopped; at some point during our flight through the village, the clouds broke mercifully to let the dying light of that October sun break like a flame of gold through the gray and lifeless frame of day.  It was a small blessing; a more romantic soul than myself might have turned the whole thing into a hopeful image, a promise of reward for what had been a confusing evening.  But I knew better.

     Well, he said, pushing open the gate, shall we?  He never said, but I guess he had been checking the park to see it was empty.  There was by now very little natural light, so all that could be seen the various lampposts revealed--I guess that was good enough for him.  I followed him to a bench near the west end of the park, in the shadow of the trees.  Of course, I use ‘shadow’ here as a figure of speech--they loomed over us like a wall of disinterested watchmen.  Perhaps he found them comforting, a shield against unwanted attention. 

     We sat.  He withdrew his gloved hands from inside his pockets, and then his hands from those same gloves; the gloves he set beside him on the bench, and his hands he wrung together, working the various knobs carefully, massaging them, not speaking.  Water still dripped from the brim of his hat--or so I thought, but once it began dripping on my self beside him I realized that it was falling from the trees.  I looked up, waiting for him to speak; the window through the clouds remained, and I could see in the violet sky the presage of a multitude of stars.  I was never much of an astronomer, but years at sea will teach you at least to respect them.  That I allowed that respect to become admiration and then fondness--well, perhaps there is a little of the romantic left in me, after all. 

     Like the stars, do yeh, he said, not looking up or even over at me, contemplating his age-gnarled hands--flexing them, or trying to, trying to remind them of their intended purpose.  Lowering them in defeat.  He then raised his eyes, but only enough to take in the vacant park--and I doubt he saw even that.  Then he stifled a laugh, a sardonic laugh that matched the smirk on his face.  That smirk was filled with disdain--I hoped it wasn’t for me, but then again I couldn’t know the real reason, not yet.  And I’m not even sure I know now, but I’ve got an idea.

     Sure, I told him, I liked the stars just fine.  I took it he didn’t share my opinion.

     Oh, I like the stars, sure, he replied, distantly.  Those ain’t real stars, though.  Again, I couldn’t know what he meant by this--but the truth is, I agreed.  The difference between he and I, at least in that moment, was that I could look at those pale imitations and see the beauty that I had come to love almost as much as anything--they reminded me of that precious feeling I’d developed over the course of my lonesome past, and so I could feel that again, even here; he, on the other hand, could seen nothing but what he missed--what should have been there but wasn’t: not it, not the thing itself, but the absence of it.  To put it simply: he was a man who’d given up.  Which made his anxious behavior of this last hour even more confusing.

     What he said next confused me all the more.

     Still looking blankly ahead, he asked me a single question.  How old do you think I am?

     Well, I myself was fifty-three--I’m fifty-four now, but I’ve changed little enough in these short months.  I say this because of what his next words to me were.

     After I gave him my age, and then gave what I thought to be a generous estimate of his age (seventy)--and after he echoed that previous stifled laugh, he first shook his head, slowly, sadly.  Seventy, he echoed, smiling.  Seventy, Mr Midas.  He then gave me his age--or an age, anyway.  I must have looked at him like a fool, the fool I felt he must be taking me for, my mouth slightly agape, my eyes squinting in the dark as if that somehow might squeeze the truth out of the riddle he provided me. 

     You don’t believe me, he said.  I could hardly deny it; and he wasn’t surprised--didn’t act surprised, offended, insistent, any of that.  Nothing about him suggested humor, and yet neither did he seem to worry about how I perceived him.  And my perception of him was shifting by the moment, I promise you that.

     You’ll excuse me, I said at last, a little late with my apology.

     He didn’t seem to notice, or mind.  Of course, he said.  You think I’m crazy, don’t you?  It’s alright.  I’d feel the same way if our places were reversed.  I’d be a little alarmed if you accepted that as fact, to be honest.  You aren’t alone.  And you might not be wrong.  Here he smiled a wry kind of smile.  But we’re all a little crazy when it comes down to it, aren’t we?  Don’t worry, he added after a silent moment passed between us--I, too dumbfounded for speech.  Don’t worry, he said, I’m every bit as sane as you are.  As I’d begun to question my own sanity more the deeper this confusing spiral devolved, this final assessment of his wasn’t exactly encouraging. 

     It seemed as if he had more to say in his defense, but suddenly his aspect changed--almost as if he remembered his purpose for calling me, for leading me here; he seemed to expect something, and standing, scanning the dark depths of the park like some kind of feeble lighthouse, about to crumble into the very sea it surveyed.  When he began to remove his jacket, I wasn’t sure what to do--honestly, I felt the need to distance myself from him (I’m not sure why), and did so, sliding a little down the bench while he struggled with the thick cloth fabric.  But at last he succeeded; and my surprise continued--strapped to the old man’s back, like the kind of scabbards you might see on some action hero in a movie, were two mounds.  Even in the low light of the lamp nearby, I could surmise they were envelopes: the manila kind, like you might find in an office somewhere.  Both were full--of documents, I assumed--and naturally my wonder did not end there. 

     Take them, he said--it was evidently too much trouble for him to remove them himself. 

     What are they?

     You’ll see for yerself, he said.  They’re right up your alley, if you are what you say you are.

     I was that, if anything; and, with equal parts caution and intrigue, I unfastened both folders and weighed them in my hands.  My eyes had not deceived me, they could not have been any more full than they were--but the question was, what filled them?  He had no interest in answering that particular question, and neither could I open them in this weather--even now, the clouds had closed that starry window and I could feel the first few gentle drops of that autumn rain renewed.  Of the envelopes, neither were marked--both appeared to be new, which made me wonder.

     Our business thus concluded, the old man wondered if I would be staying in the village long.  I told him I wasn’t sure, I had business elsewhere but nothing urgent.  No collections, I added, feigning a smile that I hoped would convey my desire to be on my way.  I think he understood this, but at the same time he didn’t make any sign of leaving the park.  He gathered his coat, his gloves; but even as the rain began to fall (I hid the folders under my own coat), he merely turned his face, eyes closed, to the sky; and for the very first time, appeared to be at peace.  Had accepting these two curious packages really freed him from something?

     I was on the point of asking--I make it a point to never ask, it’s better not to know in most cases--but the thought caught somewhere in transit to my lips; the man, standing suddenly, turned in the direction of the gate--his face turned a little to the side, as if sensing there on the wind something that I could not. 

     Quick, he said quietly--evenly, but with quiet insistence--get out of sight.  Get into the trees, and hide yourself.  Make no sound.

     What--

     Just do it, he said; and then throwing his coat over his shoulder, his arms into the sleeves, he resumed his stooped posture (I didn’t notice until that moment that it had left him, or he it), and began stumbling about, like a drunk or a lunatic.  Nevertheless, I did what he said. 

     I didn’t have to wait long to learn the reason why.  Two men, both dressed in white uniforms of some company that I couldn’t imagine, approached from the direction of the gate.  Both smiled, wore friendly demeanors, and they engaged my old contact as if he was a lost friend.  They called him Archimedes.  Don’t call me that, I heard him say, that’s not my name.  I told you--  You’ve told us a lot, Archimedes, one of them said, isn’t that what you like most?  Telling stories.  They ain’t stories! the old man shouted--though I could see in his face there was no anger, not really.  Neither did he resist these two men as they directed him away, in the direction of the gate.  I kept to my concealment in the shadow of the trees until they were well away--all they while, the three of them talked, joked; the old man never once seemed in duress--and then I carefully followed at a distance, acting as much as I could like a chance wanderer out for a night stroll.  I saw them help the old man into the back seat of an old gray sedan; and by the time they drove away, I could just make out the company name that was printed on one side: Carrington Estate.

       Left alone, I had to laugh--at myself, more than anything.  He really was crazy, after all that.

     But, be that as it may, I had in my possession two conspicuously full folders--and though his nervous behavior could have been nothing more than paranoia, I really didn’t have anything pressing to do.  Which is why, if for no other reason than to validate my own actions of that night, I returned to my room in the local inn and by the light of a single lamp, I laid both folders before me.  And in that simple light, in the quiet and the security of those four walls, I noticed something written on each that I had failed to notice in the park.  Granted, this created even more questions and answered none, but I think I began to understand the man’s nervous attitude.

     And to develop one of my own.>

    

This all happened several months ago.  I can say nothing of what I found on those envelopes without placing myself in undue risk--and, as I said above, I have my own ghost to chase.  As for the old man, I never did meet him again.

     The following is my best attempt to decipher the mysteries of what those folders contained--to say nothing of separating what is true from what is not.  I’ll leave that to you, my audience, should this story even come to light.